I recently published a review of a new book, Digital Capitalism and Distributive Forces by Sabine Pfeiffer in Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews. You can find the published version of review on the journal website here (paywalled) or the (open access) accepted version on my institutional repository here (or get in touch with me).

The book was a new, at least to me, take on digital capitalism with its focus on distributive forces namely advertising and marketing, transport and warehousing, and control and prediction. Pfeiffer suggests digital capitalist enterprise has had a more significant impact on these than on some other changes which have garnered more attention such as the shift from physical to digital media.

In more technical terms she suggests that the “realization of value” (selling commodities to ‘‘realize’’ their value), rather than the generation of value, has taken a more central role in the current era of capitalism. This is because of the increasing significance of crises of overproduction in contemporary production (partly the result of globalization). Digital technological innovations have had the biggest impact on tackling this crisis, Pfeiffer claims.

I highly recommend the book which brings a refreshing take on some debates which have sometimes become quite entrenched. It also successfully situates new and emerging technologies in longer term developments and fundamentals of the capitalist system.